Vita Sancti Niniani

It is loosely based on the career of the early British churchman Uinniau or Finnian, whose name through textual misreadings was rendered "Ninian" by high medieval English and Anglo-Norman writers, subsequently producing a distinct cult.

[7] The Latin text was printed in the following works: Translations have been made by Forbes, and subsequently by John and Winifred MacQueen (1961, reprinted 1990 and 2005) and Jane Patricia Freeland (2006).

However, one day while Ninian was travelling with an "equally saintly man" named Plebia, having stopped to sing some psalms in the rain, he "had an unlawful thought" causing God's protection against the rain to disappear; when Ninian and his book got wet, he recovered his senses and the protection reestablished itself (chapter nine).

[26] Based on assertions made by Ailred in the text, two sources were used for the Vita: Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which mentions Ninian (as Niniau) several times, and another work "in an extremely barbarous style".

[28] However, historian Karl Strecker undermined this argument, and it is fairly certain this "barbarous" source was written in some form of Latin.

[29] This "barbarous" source was probably not the Miracula Nynie Episcopi, an 8th-century poem written in Latin recounting the miracles of "Nyniau".

[30] As both Bede and the Miracula reproduce the scribal error that turned Uinniau into Nyniau or Niniau, it is likely that Bede and the Miracula drew on a common source, written by 730, a source historian James E. Fraser called the Liber de Vita et Miraculis.

[34] It is thought that Ailred authored the work at the behest of one of the new bishops of Galloway, either Gille-Aldan or Christian, who were eager to promote their re-established bishopric to the Anglo-Norman and wider world.

[38] Thus, Ailred's work helped create what was in essence a new saint, based solely on literary texts and scribal corruptions.

[40] The name Uinniau is a hypocoristic form of Uindobarros, realised in Old Irish with an F (Finnbar and Finniau, hence Finnian).